


Detached

by MoonyJ4M



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Consent, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Drug Use, Sastiel Big Bang 2014, Season/Series 09, Self-Harm, Vessel Consent Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 08:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2422250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonyJ4M/pseuds/MoonyJ4M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events of Road Trip, Sam and Cas head to the bunker. Sam doesn't feel quite like himself after being used as a vessel and has some trouble to be at peace again with the idea that Cas is still wearing Jimmy Novak's body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detached

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2014 Sastiel Minibang challenge. I'd like to thank [Melissa](http://songsaboutsleep.tumblr.com) for beta reading it and to [APenToMyHeadandImDead](http://archiveofourown.org/users/APenToMyHeadandImDead) for the lovely art made for the fic, that you can see [here](http://apentomyhead.livejournal.com/7954.html).

**one;**  
  
“Why are you driving?”  
  
Sam doesn’t really register the fact that he’s said something. He hears something that sounds like “I don’t have wings” but he’s not quite paying attention. Instead, he wonders vaguely if Cas had to learn how to drive or if it’s an ability that came with Jimmy Novak’s body. Cas opens his mouth as if to speak again, as if he knows the word  _vessel_  just made an appearance in Sam’s head, but says nothing. They eventually get to the bunker, but Sam’s still not sure how long it took. There are many, many things going through his mind right now, but there wasn’t much to do about them.  
  
 _I’m going to take a shower_ , he thought, not sure if he’d vocalized it or not. Cas was hovering over him in a curious human way, asking if he needed something and eventually finding his way into another room. Sam made his way to the showers almost robotically; he felt like there was another Sam somewhere else who was more grounded, who knew exactly what to do, and he, right here, had got the worst part. Not so long ago he was dying. Not so long ago it hurt to breathe and his skin was on fire even though he was almost always cold. Not so long ago his mouth tasted like blood and he had the vivid impression that he was slowly rotting from the inside. It hadn’t felt good, but it had felt right.  
  
Now he felt exhausted, both physically and mentally. But he wasn’t sick, not like before. His insides had started to heal, but instead of relief, now all he felt was this desperate need to scrub away at his skin. It’s funny, he thinks, not laughing at all; he had always felt unclean, only now he felt it physically. He scrubs at his skin until the hot water runs cold.  
  
“Sam?”  
  
Sam is not sure how long he’s been in the shower, but if Cas felt the need to check on him, then it must have been a while. He’s still strangely unaware of his surroundings, and notices the red marks his nails left on his arms with a detached interest, as if he was looking at someone else’s body. He finds a pile of clothes waiting for him near the sink, he gets dressed, and finds Cas waiting for him on the other side of the door.  
  
They walk in silence. Sam follows after Cas mechanically, he steps like he’s expected to, placing one foot in front of the other. But every step feels strange, like his body is not his own. It reminds him of his growth spurt. Back then his limbs had felt too big for him, he had felt awkward in his own skin, he had to get used to how his body had changed.  
  
He notices after a while that they’re heading to the kitchen and he stops. “Just try,” Cas says, and it is not a order, it’s a plea, so he starts walking again. There’s a sandwich waiting for him there, and he can’t help the fond smile that tugs at his lips at the thought of Cas fixing it for him. He murmurs a quiet thanks and sits down in front of it, but he doesn’t touch it yet. Cas fumbles around the kitchen for a while, washing the dirty utensils, and it strikes Sam again how human these little things are.  
  
“What did it feel like?” He asks, tearing the sandwich into small parts with trembling hands. Cas sits down across from him and frowns, head tilted at the vagueness of the question. “Your body,” he hesitates, “Your celestial body.”  
  
“We don’t really refer to it as a body”, he starts, drying his hands with a washcloth. “A human body has physical boundaries; it is clearly distinguishable from its external surroundings. An angel’s trueform is basically… light and intent. Do you want a glass of water?”  
  
He’s retrieving a glass from the cupboard before Sam has a chance to reply. Sam finds it strange, how this being that existed as light and celestial intent could be standing in his kitchen, worrying over dirty utensils and pouring him a glass of water. Castiel is in front of him again after a few seconds, he holds out the glass and Sam takes it, avoiding his gaze.  
  
“And, uh, how does it feel when you’re in a vessel?”, he tries for a nonchalant tone, but he’s sure he doesn’t manage it.  
  
“Like trying to contain a galaxy between your hands”, he answers gravely, and Sam looks at him, really looks at him now. Sam had met Jimmy Novak, and he remembers what sadness looked like reflected in the man’s eyes, and he realizes that it’s those same eyes looking at him now. Only this time it’s different, this time that gaze holds the weight of the world. That’s when it hits him that the body in front of him is not Castiel’s own, that the man he sees is not this Angel of the Lord.  
  
“Do you miss it?”  
  
“At times, yes.”  
  
Sam fumbles some more with his food. He doesn’t really eat any of it, and he’s sure Cas notices, but he hopes that at least it seems like he tried. He remembers with a bitter smile when he first learned about the existence of the angels - or rather, when his belief in their existence was confirmed. He had prayed for them, he had trusted them, and look where that had left him now.  
  
“This is Jimmy Novak’s body.” He states, and he doesn’t really care that it sounds like an accusation.  
  
“Jimmy Novak willingly gave his body to Heaven’s intent. He consented,” Cas says, reaching reassuredly for Sam’s hand, but retreating it when the hunter visibly flinches.  
  
“Look, I know this is not on you, but I don’t think you can understand. Do you know what it’s like to have someone else… Not only controlling you, but  _inside_  of you? In your mind? I mean, do you get it, Cas? That whatever it is that makes me who I am, was just-- Pushed aside, while somebody else took control.”  
  
Sam wasn’t really expecting an answer, and he doesn’t get one, even though Cas looks like he would give anything to have it.  
  
“Just forget it, Cas. I’m tired, I’ll just head to my room now. Thanks again for the sandwich.”  
  
Sam thought for a moment that Cas would walk him to the bedroom, but he must have considered him stable enough to do it alone.  
  
“Goodnight, Sam.”

**.x.**

  
Sam stared at the ceiling for a long time before convincing himself that there weren’t any cracks he could count there. He couldn’t focus enough to read a book and couldn’t hold a pen still for his life. Blessed were those who were able to clear their minds of all thoughts.  
  
 _For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven_ , he thought incoherently, and then laughed at himself. That seemed to wake up his other senses and now he couldn’t find a position that felt right in bed. His skin was still prickling where he had rubbed too much, as if it was still not enough, but he didn’t want to alarm Cas by going to the showers again. It was like that other Sam, the one who had some control over his own life, was slowly coming back to him and making some small right decisions, while the other one kept falling apart. _I’m going crazy again._  He knew the feeling as an old friend, if only he had any.  
  
Sam hadn’t turned off the light yet, and he looked around; the room looked exactly like it did the last time he’d been there, but he felt uneasy as if everything had been moved by an inch when he wasn’t looking. It wasn’t entirely unlikely, considering that now he knew he wasn’t really  _there_  for a good part of the time. He looked intently to his hands; they weren’t exactly stable, but had started to feel like they were his again. It was a weird, detached feeling, as if he couldn’t be entirely sure that his body would obey him, as if he wasn’t really occupying it. He decided to give it a test and sat down.  
  
When they were getting used to the idea of living in the bunker and chose their bedrooms, they had noticed they were already warded. They only had to add a few more sigils here and there, but Sam hadn’t told Dean about the big devil’s trap he’d drawn under his own bed. It was still intact, and when he stepped out of the bed nothing happened. Sam let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding; it’s not like it would be the first time something could be possessing him without his knowing. Hell, it wouldn’t even be the second time.  
  
They hadn’t protected the rooms against angels so Cas could walk around the bunker, but they should probably do it now. The fact that he was considering it made him sick; there had been a time when Sam trusted angels enough to ask them to protect him, but that seemed to belong to another life, to another person even.  
  
He was right in front of the door now and he could bet Cas was somewhere nearby, alert to any weird noises. If Sam was really going to draw the sigils, he would need something to draw them with. He automatically started looking for a pen, it was as if there were still some thoughts his body would obey without questioning. For a moment he thought he wouldn’t find one, but all his stuff was still there; not only his pens and pencils, but all the guns and knifes he kept near him. Sam stared at the knife just a bit too long before grabbing a marker; a reflex of the fact that he almost always needed to draw sigils with blood, he told himself. Just a reflex.  
  
He stared at the door for a moment, not sure of what to do next. Locking himself from the only person willing to help him suddenly didn’t sound like a good idea anymore; as a matter of fact, it was not the place that needed to be protected. It was not the place that had been invaded.  
  
  
 **two;**  
  
Daylight didn’t reach the bunker and Sam didn’t care enough to look at the clock when he woke up, so he went to the kitchen with only the vague impression that it was early morning. He wasn’t sure if he had any sleep last night; he just kept dozing off and waking up again after what seemed to be only seconds, so he figures that whatever sleep he got wouldn’t count for much. Cas was nowhere to be seen while he made some coffee and, although Sam knew that he probably had other things to worry about, he couldn’t help feeling his absence with a tang of disappointment.  
  
Cas had done the dishes neatly the other night, but the same couldn’t be said of his ability to stack them back with the others. Dean was so prissy about that kitchen, he would probably be horrified if he’d seen them all messed up; Sam couldn’t stop this chain of thoughts until it was too late, and he could feel his own face melt while his brain refused to catch up and decide that right now it wasn’t supposed to be a fond memory. He didn’t want to think about Dean. It wasn’t quite a conscious decision, but rather the only possible one. What he should have predicted is that it was like trying to pretend not to have one leg.  
  
“Sam?”  
  
Sam shook off his thoughts and retrieved one mug from the dish rack. Cas was coming down the stairs; without his wings he actually had to make noise while going from one place to the other.  
  
“Hey, Cas. I thought you weren’t here.”  
  
“I was checking the perimeter”, he explained, standing near the table silently asking if he should come closer. Sam pushed out a chair with his foot and nodded at it, and Cas took the place across him.  
  
“Do you still eat?”, Sam asked, noticing him eyeing his half eaten toast curiously.  
  
“I don’t really feel the need to, for which I’m very grateful. It was a bit annoying.”  
  
“Can’t blame you.”  
  
Sam was fidgeting. Cas wasn’t exactly a master at subtlety and Sam knew that he was assessing him. He didn’t know what gave him in, if the long sleeved shirt or his obviously wet hair, but Cas eventually made a move for his side of the table.  
  
“Can I?”, he asked, and Sam hated all his care as much as he was grateful for it. He hated that Cas was seeing him as such a fragile creature now, even if that was how he felt; as something breakable, worn too thin.  
  
Cas rolled up his right sleeve with the same concentration he always reserved for pretty much everything; his touch was as delicate as it had always been, and Sam didn’t want to flinch again, but he couldn’t help it.  
  
“Are these sigils?”, Cas asked, squinting at what was left of the drawings in his arm.  
  
“I, uh… I wanted to”, he paused, lost in what exactly he wanted to say and if he really wanted to. Cas didn’t hush him. “I wanted protection”, he continued with a poor excuse for a laugh. “It was a dumb idea anyway, I tried to rub it off.”  
  
He rolled the sleeve down again and stared at his cold coffee. He had really tried to scratch the marker off his arms in the shower this morning and his skin was still red and prickling from it, but drawing them the night before at least had made him stop thinking about  _carving_  them.  
  
“No, I think it is quite a good idea”, Cas said softly, and Sam knew it wasn’t because he thought it would give him any actual protection. He started to get back to his side of the table, but Sam held his hand there for a bit more.  
  
“This is okay”, Sam said once he was sure he wasn’t going to freak out about it, and let a breath out. Cas just nodded without asking for further explanation.  
  
“I have to keep healing you”, he said after a while, almost apologetic.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”  
  
Cas turned to his side of the table and touched his forehead; the whole thing never lasted more than one minute at a time, but Sam still wasn’t exactly a fan of the process. It would start as a warm rush in the point where Cas had touched and spread through his body, sometimes taking a bit longer here and there; even with all the things they had seen in their lifetime, the sensation of having wounds closing as if they never existed still struck Sam as unnatural, even if this time he couldn’t see them.  
  
 _Safety tape and pins inside_ It wasn’t so far from the truth.  
  
  
 **three;**  
  
Dean had convinced him to smoke pot for the first time when he was fourteen; Sam wouldn’t admit he was curious before that, though. Dean didn’t smoke often and even less when Sam was around, but when he did he’d get  _that_  look on his face, and Sam wondered countless times what it would feel like to be really relaxed for even a little bit.  
  
He had a hard time to learn how to inhale the smoke back then, but once it hit him he understood why Dean looked like nothing in the world could be his problem anymore. It had terrified Sam at first; how slow everything seemed to happen, how he couldn’t keep up with his thoughts anymore. It felt like he was just an observer in the world and nothing could really touch him.  
  
It felt like he was inhabiting someone else’s skin. It’s not so different now, and Sam wonders briefly -  _deliriously_ , if he wants to make it worse - if someone had drugged him. The detachment is pretty much the same, and now more than ever Sam understands why it was so scary at first; it was like he hadn’t control of his body, didn’t know where it ended and the outside begun.  
  
There’s not much left for him now than embrace the feeling.

**.x.**

  
  
Sam watches someone else in the mirror of the bathroom.  
  
Someone else’s eyes dried on the fourth day. He doesn’t look so bad now.  
  
Sam washes his hands very thoroughly, concentrating on the feeling of getting them clean to ignore the slight burn in the back of his eyes. It’s a permanent thing now, as if he’s always about to cry, but at least for now the tears had stopped dropping. He doesn’t really understand it, though; it’s not like he’s desperate or scared anymore. It’s just this constantly feeling of being on the edge of something.  
  
What it could be, he just doesn’t know.  
  
He finds Cas on one of the study desks, his attention focused on the pile of books he’d gathered in front of him.  
  
“Is there anything you don’t know in these books?”  
  
“Some interesting perspectives, although mostly wrong.”  
  
Sam sits beside him, encouraged by the fact Cas still hadn’t talked about what exactly he was looking for, even though they both were aware Sam already knew it. He just couldn’t put any sense of urgency on finding Abaddon or Gadreel or anything else. Things still seemed to happen in slow waves that hold him from feeling anything real.  
  
“I wonder if it ever gets better, you know?” he says after a while watching Cas going through pages way faster than a human would. “Just… every step we take just seems to make everything worse than before.”  
  
“You more than anyone has the right to be tired, Sam.”  
  
“It doesn’t really matter.” he says, but there’s no bitterness in it.  
  
Cas closes his book and sighs into his hands; Sam catches himself thinking again if he’s not looking at Jimmy Novak. It makes him shiver, but he knows it’s just one of his weird thoughts. He’s seen Novak, he knows they’re not the same person, even though the body is the same. Well,  _that_  part definitely brings the shiver back.  
  
For a moment Cas looked like he wanted to reach out to him, but instead he stares at his hands.  
  
“You still think about this vessel”, he said.  
  
“I’m sorry, Cas, I just… Sort of can’t avoid it.”  
  
ldquo;You don’t need to apologize, I see where your concern comes from.  _I_  don’t want to upset you.”  
  
“You’re not.” It’s only half a lie. It  _does_  bother him, knowing that once there was a person there, a person like himself who had their own body and their own concerns and had all that taken away from them for other being’s intents; except that he knows it’s not the same situation, it’s not even close, and the mere thought of pushing Cas away somehow is enough to urge him to go past all of this.  
  
“I find it fascinating how humans are contained in their bodies”, Cas says then, tentatively, as if testing if Sam is okay with this conversation. “You all have souls, but you focus your existences on a physical manifestation.”  
  
They were leaning on their folded arms now, whispering as students talking during class for no reason other than the sense of intimacy it gives. Sam’s so rarely this close to another person; it’s a bit unnerving as much as it’s comforting to do something just because he wants to feel as close as comfortable as he can. This. This is good. He wants to drink the details of the face in front of his and file them as Cas’ own features, as his own eyes and crinkles and five o’clock shadow, but somehow he always knows it’s more than that; there’s something so much bigger behind that simple shell and it hurts him a little that he can’t really see it.  
  
“When I…”, Sam started, clearing his throat. “When I was in the Cage. After some time I just… This didn’t exist, you know?”, he said, pointing at himself. “This body. These boundaries, as you call them. I was just there.”  
  
“After how long?”, Cas asked after what seemed to be a long time, as if he had to know but didn’t want to ask.  
  
Sam lets out a humorless laugh at that. It had been a while since he last thought about the surreality of it.  
  
“I lost count after the first centuries.”  
  
He gnaws at his thumbnail for a bit, not really wanting to see pity looking back at him. When he does look at Cas again, though, he’s staring absently at Sam’s hand, brow furrowed and sad like he looks when he’s wondering what he could’ve done differently.  
  
“I should have done something earlier.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“To take you out of the Cage. To save you, _all_ of you.”  
  
“If you had taken all of me out at once I probably wouldn’t even be here now. Let’s just not do this, okay? That’s not… I don’t really want to think about this. It’s just that you said your true form is too much to be physically contained. And I feel like it’s everything else that is too big, you know? I think it’s because of the time I spent… there. It kind of dissolved me into something else. Made me forget how it was…” _How it was to be human_ , he was going to say, but that’s not really true. He hadn’t really known how it was to be human before that, when he could hear the blood pumping in demons veins, when he could taste that blood in his mouth and feel it in his body, the rush of power, of being capable of everything. Of being in control.  
  
His heart races at the memory, fist closing in a spasm, a weak tentative to keep himself in line, as if he could stop the bile from rising to his throat. It just won’t ever stop, he won’t ever not have a reaction and just shrug at any of this.  
  
“What does my soul looks like?”, he asks, surprised at how broken his voice sounds. He’s not really sure why he asks or if he really wants to know the answer, imagines it as a broken, distorted shadow of what it could have been once, but Cas’ smile is so sweet that he can’t do anything other than relax a little under his gaze.  
  
Cas tucks a strand of Sam’s hair behind his ear, a little hesitantly, so soft that if Sam wasn’t seeing his hand moving he maybe wouldn’t have felt it. Sam leans into the touch, doesn’t even remember when was the last time someone did that to him.  
  
“Your soul is beautiful, Sam Winchester”, he says simply, and Sam can’t do much else than believe it, not when Cas is looking at him in the eye as if he’s so worthy of that attention, not when he says his name like that, with what he doesn’t want to think of as reverence but sounds like it anyway.  
  
  
 **four;**  
  
Sam wakes up to the realization that he’s on the couch, with a blanket draped over him and all, and doesn’t remember exactly how he got there. Cas is a few feet away, on the same desk, dedicated to his study once again. He hadn’t realized he was tired enough to just crash like that, but he didn’t know much about himself these last few days anyway. Sam’s managed to not even notice he hasn’t shaved for two days despite the ridiculous amount of time he’s been spending in the bathroom, showering like his life depends on it, like he will never get clean enough no matter how much he scrubs.  
  
He closes his eyes again, still awake but dreaming of a day when he doesn’t exist anymore, and he jolts when he feels the now familiar presence of Cas approaching him.  
  
“Are you hungry?”, he asks.  
  
Sam shakes his head, but Cas heads in the general direction of the kitchen anyway. He remembers every single word of their earlier conversation and it makes him cringe in something that only vaguely resembles shame. He never talks about the time in the Cage, and it feels weird to do it with someone other than Dean. Like some kind of betrayal. Oh, ain’t  _that_  funny.  
  
“I miss my brother”, he says, almost completely to himself if it wasn’t for the fact that Cas was coming back to the living room just then.  
  
Cas deposits that tray he was carrying on the coffee table. A banana, an apple and a bottle of water.  
  
“I know”, he offers, and Sam knows it also means  _Me too_ the same way Cas knows he’s talking about a Dean they haven’t seen in a long, long time.  
  
Sam accepts the water and Cas sits on the floor, staring for a long time at the banana before peeling it and eating with extreme concentration. He gives up on the second bite.  
  


**.x.**

  
It happens in stages. At first the time between Sam’s awakenings in the middle of the night become longer, till the point he can’t just ignore them and pretend he had a nice, uneventful, night of sleep. He’s not any better at managing his awake time than he was on the first day; staring at the ceiling is still the less useful solution, and for some reason he can’t bring himself to just get off his bed and out of the room to go read some files or make himself a cup of tea. He’s glued there, on a bed he makes sure to make every morning without leaving any crinkles, in a room organized with the military precision he’s always reserved for places he’d stay for more than a few nights.  
  
It’s only a logical conclusion then that instead of going to bed and not being able to leave it till the morning he just stops going there at all. Sam ends up sleeping on the couch more often than not, even though it’s not nearly as big as it should’ve been for his joints not to complain.  
  
He doesn’t see Cas around all the time, but gets used to hear him walking around the bunker and sometimes taking the stairs that lead outside. At night he settles down on his habitual study desk, new pile of files and books that sometimes Sam wonders if he’s really been reading. Sam gets used to that too; the sound of pages turning lulls him to sleep. Eventually Cas moves to a desk closer to the couch and a couple of nights later he’s sitting on the carpet, back leaning on the couch. Sometimes he brings the books, sometimes he doesn’t. Sam can get used to that too.  
  
“You ever sleep?”, he asks once, watching Cas choose a different book on the shelves of the living room.  
  
“Not anymore.”, he says, sitting in his new usual spot. Sam notices that the book laying on his lap is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  
  
“Didn’t get to finish this one. Barely started, to be honest”  
  
“Do want me to read aloud?”  
  
Sam nods; he can’t do much to get more comfortable there, but turns on his side to see Cas’ profile as he reads. After some time, Cas just turns around so he’s facing Sam and the couch. Sam sleeps around the thirtieth page, and dreams about a being made of light reading for the creatures beneath him.  
  
It’s a good night.

**.x.**

  
“We are out of food”, Cas says, as if announcing the next Great Flood.  
  
Sam had been inspecting his forearms; he had drawn on them again when he wanted to peel the scabs formed by his constant scratching. He covers them in a heartbeat when he hears Cas talking, though, and confirms the emptiness of the fridges.  
  
“I guess that means we have to do some groceries”, he sighs, not all that happy with the reality of it.  
  
“If you make a list I can head to town.”  
  
“No, I-- uh. I’ll do it.”  
  
Cas holds his gaze for a couple of seconds before nodding.  
  
Sam regrets using Cas’ car the moment he drives into the main street; Lebanon was probably the tiniest town Sam has ever been, and he’d had his fair share of them for a lifetime. The car draws attention to him as efficiently as wearing a pineapple for a hat would. It doesn’t take long to find a grocery store, but he drives around some more in an attempt to calm down. It’s just a simple task he’s done a million times before, there’s no reason to be nervous.  
  
But he still is when he parks the car and goes to the store, bell dinging above his head as soon as he opens the door. There’s an old lady at the cash register and two men getting juice and beer at the freezers on the back, and Sam can’t help thinking it’s overpopulated. It doesn’t take long for him to gather enough of everything they need, so he heads to the register. Sam takes the time he waits in line behind the men from town he’d seen before to read the headers of the newspapers and magazines. Apparently nothing apocalyptic was going on; at least not enough to be noticeable anyway.  
  
“Honey?”  
  
“Hm? Oh sorry.”  
  
Sam doesn’t need to look at his side to notice the two men still standing near the door, probably thinking they are being discreet. He can’t blame them; Sam’s a stranger and they got to look after their own.  
  
“Anything else?”  
  
“Just the newspaper. Thanks.”  
  
She wishes him a good day when he has everything packed up and Sam offers her a smile, muscles strained by the lack of use. The men - a father and a son, he thinks - are on the outside now, eyeing the car that looks as questionable as himself.  
  
“You’re staying around?”, the older one asks. Sam doesn’t stop arranging the bags on the car, but he tries to make himself look smaller; an old ability born from his genuine wish to not stand out. He’d always have to make a lot more effort to stop doing that than to slip into it again.  
  
“Heading to Lawrence, actually. Just had to get some supplies first”, he tries for the friendly smile again, rearranging the cartons of milk for the third time to not look like he’s on a hurry.  
  
When he finally leaves, still under the scrutinizing gaze of the locals, Sam makes a point of heading in the general direction of Lawrence first. It’s only about four hours from there, but Sam doesn’t remember it as home as much as Dean does; going there all that years ago didn’t make him remember anything, just long for the memories.  
  
He takes a turn back after driving south for a few miles out of town and goes north again, passing by the  _Welcome to the Center of the USA_  sign on the way. The scenery doesn’t change much; miles and miles of open road and empty land, with a few houses here and there. It’s a clear day and Sam realizes he didn’t know he needed some fresh air. He gets to the bunker feeling a little more like himself again.  
  
“We should buy stuff in another town next time”, he says as he goes downstairs, finding Cas examining the world map on the table.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“People get suspicious. Any news?”  
  
“Not really. Are you okay? You seem… euphoric.”  
  
“I guess it was a bit of a cabin fever, you know?”, he puts the groceries in their proper places, noticing that he has, in fact, a lot more energy than the last few days. “Guess I just had to go out a little. See things won’t fall apart if I move”, he adds, slowing down. Nothing bad had happened. He knows it’s silly but it’s still a small comfort.  
  
Cas helps him for a minute or two before he starts fidgeting.  
  
“Dean hasn’t called yet”, he says after all, sighing as if it wasn’t his choice to let it out.  
  
“Dean’s not here because that’s what he wants.” Sam moves from the fridge to the cupboards, giving all his attention to the cans of food. Well, most of it. “He won’t call, Cas, he’s doing whatever the hell he think he’s supposed to do.”  
  
“Yes, but… Nevermind.”  
  
Cas blissfully doesn’t insist for a while, but Sam knows that he’s partially right. He can feel him preparing to speak again even before turning to face him, and braces himself for what’s coming.  
  
“Dean often has a distorted idea of what’s right and wrong.”  
  
“You summed it up pretty well.” This is not the conversation Sam wanted to have right now, and it’s making what energy he had left turn into the kind of anger he’s sick and tired of directing at Dean. “And honestly, Cas? I’m pretty okay not having to deal with him saying to my face that it was for my own good.”  
  
“He’s realized it was mistake.”  
  
“It doesn’t change anything, does it?”  
  
Sam packs the bags one inside of another and leaves the kitchen, one last glance to Cas as a warning that the conversation is over. He paces through the bunker and ends up in the archive, opening files at random and not really reading any of them. What he  _didn’t_  tell Cas to avoid prolonging it even more was that Dean most probably only realized that the best thing to do was to admit it had been a mistake; it didn’t mean he believed it.  
  
It was so much like him to do whatever he thinks is right by his own standards that Sam should probably have seen that one coming. He didn’t, though, and now he hates himself a little bit more for still having a hard time feeling that his anger is legitimate. He had felt guilty for being angry at Dad all the time when he was a teenager, for leaving to Stanford, for living almost as a normal person, and now again for something he could not control. It’s a pattern he can’t get out of and, to be quite honest, doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to.  
  
That’s one thing he misses about his soulless counterpart; he remembers what it feels like to not have any guilt, to admit that all the times he’s been wronged were not his fault. Sam shivers at the thought of what  _that_  Sam would do to his brother if he was in his place.  
  
He doesn’t want to hurt Dean; this is not the kind of anger he feels and it’s not how it usually lashes out. Even his anger is a tired one, a sick feeling that eats at his guts and he fights it as if he didn’t have the right to feel it. He’d wished he had the power to revert everything, make things go back to when they were at least  _okay_ , when family wasn’t such a distorted concept. Sam doesn’t think he wants it anymore; he’s outgrown it the way he outgrew the idea of normal life. He just wants to go - was ready for it even - but there’s always something or someone pulling his feet back.  
  
Sam wonders if he’s supposed to go to Heaven, how it would look like without manipulation. If he was happy the times he doesn’t remember being there. If he’s going to feel time pass till Dean joins him. If his brother will want to join him at all. If he can choose to exist in Heaven as a soul instead of a body, or if he’s going to have to wait like he did in Hell for his sense of physicality to slip from his fingers till he’s just everything and nothing at all.  
  
He misses it.  
  
Sam finds himself back in his room in the midst of his thoughts; he doesn’t like to use the bathroom there, finds the sequence of two doors too much of an isolation, but ends up there this time anyway. No wonder people at town had found him a bit threatening; he still has some trouble reconciling the image in the mirror to the person he is. Sometimes it just feels like he’s moving underwater, sometimes it’s like he’s watching another person from the outside, but other times, like now, he can almost feel his body as merely the barrier that contains him.  
  
It would fill him with panic other day, but now that the worst is gone, Sam finds the intent behind each movement of this body he’s been watching fascinating. He smiles at himself, reassuring.  
  
  
 **five;**  
  
Cas keeps a safe distance the rest of the day as if they’d been arguing, but Sam is having none of that. All the pent up energy he had at morning just faded to exhaustion all over again, and he falls down on the couch a little earlier than usual.  
  
“You never finished reading”, he said.  
  
Cas smiled at his star chart before putting it aside and grabbing the book from the other day. He was going to his usual spot on the floor when he saw that Sam was there too.  
  
“Is this okay?”  
  
He didn’t answer, but sat there beside him and opened the book where they had left off and started reading. Sam liked the pace of his voice; it was soothing. He was laying on the carpet like… Well, he doesn’t remember when was the last time he’d done that. It wasn’t the most comfortable surface in the world but he’d had worse.  
  
“I’m sorry about earlier”, Cas says all of a sudden.  
  
“No, you were right. But I was too, you see? I promise we’re going to solve this sometime. Just… not now.”  
  
Sam can feel the urgency building up as he speaks; the better he gets, the clearer it is that life is going to catch up with him and soon he’ll have to stop pretending he can just postpone it as much as he needs. For now, Cas leans on him to keep reading and they stay this way for a while; Sam’s not exactly sure of when their positions started shifting again, but at some point Cas lies down too and holds the book above their heads. Sam takes it gently out of his hands after a while and turns on his side.  
  
“This is kinda weird since you don’t sleep”, he says. They’re close enough that their foreheads are almost touching; it’s been a long while since they’ve been like this and Sam’s still not completely sure if he’s really okay with the whole vessel issue, but it feels  _good_.  
  
“I can just stay here”, Cas says. “With you.”  
  
Sam says something that he expects can be understood as yes and snuggles closer. God, is he tired.  
  
He feels Cas’ fingers finding the middle of his forehead and the healing that comes from it.  
  
“How long is it still gonna take?”  
  
“A few days, probably. There’s still some remaining grace.”  
  
Sam hasn’t opened his eyes yet; Cas’ hand moves to his hair, and that makes a good job of distracting him from that last piece of information. He sleeps like that, and doesn’t doubt for a second that Cas is going to spend the whole night exactly where he is.  
  


**.x.**

  
Cas leaves in the morning to do God knows what and Sam makes it his mission to keep himself busy until he’s back. They don’t do much more than talk, read and just generally cohabit in the same space, but it’s enough so that Sam feel some sort of stability when he’s there. It’s dangerous too; he would rather not rely on a fake sense of security, but it was all they had now.  
  
Sam wishes he could go out again, maybe drive around Lebanon even though there isn’t really much to see there, just for the sake of seeing  _something_ , but it’s safer to wait for the next grocery run or other real need.  
  
It was one of the many aspects of his personality that Dad had never quite understood; Sam never really hated the road. That twisted sense of home was probably the only thing all three of them had in common, even though Sam’s relied way more on Dean. What he hated was the come and go, was having to remove himself from a different life every few weeks just to pretend at another place.  
  
But the road, he misses. Even at Stanford he would get a little antsy, weirded out at the fact that he wasn’t  _moving_  for the first time in his life. He hadn’t had any illusions about normalcy in a long time; they had started fading there, when he realized he couldn’t ever be a part of it. He’d been just a beneficiary of the supposed safety that comes with it.  
  
He can feel the hunter in him awakening a little more day by day; it’s him he’s indulging today, repainting sigils that don’t really need repainting, cleaning guns as efficiently as he always have, checking for salt even though the creatures they fight nowadays couldn’t care less about it. It amazes him now, despite all his tiredness, that he could ever think that it was not a part of who he is. A reluctant part, maybe, but not less true. He won’t ever be unfamiliar to a gun, won’t ever not know how to handle a knife, won’t ever sleep without knowing that monsters are out there.  
  
Cas comes back when Sam’s reorganizing the books, opening some of them here and there and reading one paragraph at times, but not really focusing on anything. Cas has that look on his face he gets when he comes back with empty hands. Sam pats him on the shoulder, a little to awkwardly considering the fact that they had slept tangled with each other the last night.  
  
“What’s funny?”, Cas asks at Sam’s sudden laugh.  
  
“Nothing. I mean, I just imagined you with your eyes open all night, staring at me.”  
  
“Oh. I closed them, eventually.”  
  
“That’s… Nice, Cas. Good to know.”

**.x.**

  
“Why’d you like to watch humanity so much?”  
  
Sam had decided to stop coddling himself and sleep again on his own bedroom. When Cas asked why, he just mentioned that his joints no longer were the ones of a teenager.  _You grew up too fast_ , he had said then, examining his fingers, and Sam didn’t know anymore if they were just talking about joints. What he does know is that, as any of the inexplicable events of the past week and a half, their conversation had ended up there. It  hadn’t felt weird to be there with Cas, his fingers absently tangled on his; it was as if that was their own dimension, an intimacy build as a house in a tree in the middle of a windstorm.  
  
“Have you seen them?”, Cas replies, eyebrows up in feigned surprise. “Humans are truly fascinating.”  
  
“Even with all the slaughter?”  
  
“In spite of it”, he says, eyes closed, and Sam takes his time to appreciate such a rare event. He doesn’t remember ever seeing Cas with his eyes closed before if he wasn’t dying. “There is much more purity in humanity than it seemed.”  
  
“There’s still some in Heaven?”  
  
“I’m not so sure anymore. Heaven has been corrupted by violence and betrayal for a long time. It didn’t just start in the counting of a few human years”, he pauses. “We… Angels, we are all brothers, Sam. Humans are too, but you only understand the bond when it is very close, like in a family, and you don’t get the big picture often. So imagine Heaven as this immensely big family that has been killing and dividing itself for ages. It’s what’s happening. Those are my brothers”, he repeats, and Sam takes it in. He can picture a very small fraction of it by his own experience and it has almost shattered him; he can’t imagine it in the dimension of what Cas is speaking.  
  
“Our lives must seem like nothing to you”, Sam realizes not for the first time. It strikes him from time to time that Cas, who have chosen to help them, is such an ancient creature. “Like flies.”  
  
“It’s a limited time span, even though time is fluid too”, he smiles. Sam’d rather not ask about that. “I prefer to see it as a great opportunity. A bolt of lightning.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“If a human, in their limited life time and conditions, can succeed --and I mean it like being  _good_ , genuinely good-- then I see hope in that. We have eternity in our hands, Sam, and we don’t use it as we should.”  
  
“But aren’t souls ancient too? We don’t live for long, but our souls have been around before.”  
  
“Each time is different. Each time means something.”  
  
“I wish mine hadn’t been so corrupted then.”  
  
“Your soul is the purest one I’ve ever seen, Sam.”  
  
Cas had said something like that before, but it’s the choice of words that hits him. If there’s one thing he longs for since childhood is to be pure, and ironically enough the only time he had felt close to it was when he’d been dying or being punished. When he was younger he had thought he would need some sort of validation from God, a divine thumbs up meaning that  _yes_ , it all had been for a reason,  _you can rest now_ , but God is by all means dead or missing and Heaven doesn’t mean everything it did to him before.  
  
He doesn’t think the feeling itself will ever pass; it’s not like something can just come up and wipe away his deepest belief like it never existed, he doubts there is some kind of validation that can do it. But Cas is his friend before being an angel, and that more than everything makes Sam believe that not everything he’s been looking for so long in him is lost.  
  
He can tell Cas wasn’t expecting to be kissed. It’s a silly gesture, really; a mere touch of lips on lips that he hopes can convey what he can’t say with words. Cas cups his head in his hands when they part for a second, and it starts all over again. It’s curious, in a certain way; like a silent worshipping at the last barrier that prevents them from really touching. No touch feels real to Sam, and he wonders if it’s something Cas can relate to; this, however, feels like something they can share, like one of the few aspects of his life where Sam is still an active participant.  
  
They don’t speak afterwards, content with the share of space as if it had always been a part of themselves. Maybe it has. Sam wonders just before drifting into sleep if he longs for his true form and if it would feel like being home.  
  
It doesn’t really change anything between them; not even Cas’ usual awkwardness in their day to day convivence. It strikes Sam how different it is from every other relationship he’s ever had, and he wonders if it is because Cas is an angel or just because he is… well, Cas.  
  
It’s not a relationship, though, at least not in the way he’s used to consider it. They don’t have any kind of contract or confirmation; it is just something that happens, and Sam can’t help thinking that it is some kind of consequence of the baring of their souls to each other. There are things you can’t share with someone without making it turn both of you into one.  
  
They finish the book after two more nights and start a new one. Sam know the routine they’ve established during these days won’t last for long, but he tries to allow himself to enjoy it as long as he can. Something will happen, there will be somewhere they’ll need to be, someone they’ll have to meet. But for now Sam can go back to sleep in his room, Cas reading at his side and moving to the chair when Sam sleeps because he can do it on the carpet but somehow being on a bed makes him feel more vulnerable. Cas never once looks offended though; after they tried it for the first night and Sam got too anxious he just removed himself from there and asked if he could stay in the room. Sam’s grateful for that.

**.x.**

  
It’s been two weeks now. Sam turns off the shower and stops there between turning on again and taking the towel. He doesn’t need to spend more time there.  
  
Sam watches himself in the mirror of the bathroom. It’s the first time since their first day back in the bunker that he can see himself there, acknowledge the fact that it is his image. It’d be so easy to slip out of it, though; he remembers what it's like to be the observer and it terrifies him, but at least it’s something he  _knows_.  
  
 _Stop that_ , he thinks. He’s Sam Winchester, he’s thirty two years old, he’s got a brother and a friend. He’s in Lebanon, Kansas, inside the Men of Letters’ bunker, and the tiles on the walls around him are white, even though the light makes them look greenish. There’s a floor beneath him and his hands are grabbing the cold porcelain of the sink.  
  
He is there.


End file.
